An often overlooked form of media
from a critical perspective is, in my opinion, video games. Video games have
become a medium of heavy themes, conscientious stories, and relevant events.
Naughty Dog studios’ The Last of Us
in one such thought-provoking, incredibly personal game. The ending and
preceding events have been the source of controversy and several different
viewpoints on what it is saying about humanity being inherently selfish versus
selfless. I, however, have a more expansive view on it; I believe that the
ending of The Last of Us is the
perfect example of how humans can be both selfish and selfless simultaneously
in the moment, and then struggle to cope with such snap judgements.
Throughout the game, the player
sees through the eyes of Joel, a 40-something, grizzled survivor of a “zombie apocalypse”
where a real-life brain eating fungus that causes ants to behave erratically
and violently, cordyceps, makes the
leap to humankind, causing the catastrophic downfall of civilization. Amidst
the initial outbreak, his young daughter is shot and killed by a soldier
ordered to purge the quarantine area, which forms his stoic, introverted
personality. Several years later, he is given the mission to escort Ellie, a
girl about the age his daughter would have been, across the country to a
hospital in Salt Lake City, where her immunity to the disease will be
cultivated to formulate a cure. As their journey progresses, Joel opens up to her
more and more, eventually coming to think of her as his second chance at
raising a daughter. This budding, beautiful relationship in a harsh and bleak
world is the centerpiece to the game’s ending statement on humanity.
We live in a world of selfishness
and instant gratification. This comes from evolutionarily obtained needs for
tribalism or community. We are essentially pack animals, which is, in its
simplest form, the driving force behind our love for family and friends. But
still, the needs of the individual always seem to outweigh the needs of others,
a situation magnified by our current culture and continually distant methods of
cultivating relationships. How many people would be comfortable with the
Hollywood-trope situation of being forced to choose between your spouse or
child’s life, and the lives of dozens of complete strangers? Would you? That could
spurn a lengthy ethical and moral argument, and it is hard to say who is right.
What is easy to say is “when a tough decision like that comes around, I will
make the right choice, no matter how much it hurts.” Unfortunately for Joel,
this decision most certainly comes around, maybe even to purposefully push us
to dwell on this cultural problem.
When the end of the game rolls
around, Joel is leaving the hospital that Ellie is staying in when he is told
that they will need to harvest her stem cells and brain tissue in order to
correctly synthesize a cure for the plague. He tries to return, but many armed
men are patrolling the hospital and he is told that despite the terrible pain
he is feeling, he needs to let her go and be selfless. Remembering his murdered
daughter, he quickly runs into the hospital, beating, shooting, stabbing, and
killing dozens of innocent men working to save the world, working his way to
the operating suite. When he finally arrives, he bursts through the doors, gun
in hand, watching Ellie lie sedated on the table with several surgeons around
her. One of them, a woman, begs him not to hurt them, and says that they are
trying to save the human race. In this moment of “the needs of the many [versus]
the needs of the few” (to quote Spock), Joel makes the snap judgment that no
one in our culture wants to have to make. He shoots the woman in the head, then
murders all of the other surgeons, escaping with Ellie’s limp body.
Was this the right decision to
make? I’m not sure, but I don’t think so. In fact, I’m not even sure Joel
thinks so, but it was the decision he made and he quickly learns to cope with
it, painfully. This is where my philosophy diverges from the typical “humans
are selfish” or “humans are selfless” arguments. I think that when he made the
decision to kill those surgeons and escape with Ellie, he was being inherently
selfish, because his desire to raise a daughter and do right by her after his
own had died outweighed his desire to let the doctors create a cure. But, afterward, I believe he was being
inherently selfless, as his guilt consumes him throughout his escaping car
ride, and hearing Ellie talk about how much she hoped they could find a cure
still, with it becoming very obvious that he regrets what he has done. Ellie has
her suspicions and, confronting Joel about his made-up account of what happened
at the hospital, tells him to swear to her that what he said is true, that
there was never a cure.
After a moment of staring into her
eyes, clearly pained, he replies “I swear.” The opposing argument to mine says
that in this moment, he had made his decision, and was acting out the human
nature to be selfish. But I think that it is a combination of his selfish love
for Ellie and desire for a daughter, and his selfless regret of his actions and
inner knowledge that mankind deserved that cure. This is a great example of how
we can be both selfish and selfless at once, and, regardless of which guides
our actions, we have to cope with our decisions and their motivations.
What is most heartbreaking about
this story is that it is implied that Ellie understands he is lying, and doesn’t
understand his motives or inner turmoil. The feeling in the pit of our stomach
over how close-to-home this strikes surely matches that of Joel and Ellie, as
the game closes with her final acceptance:
“Okay.”
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